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“And Lord, you’ve given her this assignment. Father, I’d just ask that you would touch her heart as she’s writing it, Lord, that she would hear from you, that she would say what you want her to say, Lord.”

A boy in a red t-shirt and high-waisted jeans stains my mind. My memories are haunted by Gordie Lachance – his dark eyelashes and silky hair, his faintly freckled skin. If you had asked me even a month ago, I would have told you that I didn’t have a gay childhood. I can’t describe a sense of ‘knowing’, I had no primary school sexual experiences and no childhood boy-crushes; I have no memory of being gay.

Several pickets were missing from the beige-coloured fence. The unruly grass grew in patches, its colour ranging from a deep ivy to a murky yellow. The mailbox was overflowing with about a week’s worth of junk mail. It was a humble, indigent dwelling. This was Mickey’s home. From the late ’50s to the early ’90s, […]

It was a dusty, rocky landscape, without adequate access to water or food, but it was also a temporary refuge from the horrors of the Islamic State. Almost three years ago, the Sinjar Mountains of Iraq’s Nineveh Governorate sheltered an estimated 50,000 people fleeing catastrophic violence. Those seeking safety were Yazidis, and they were fleeing what the advocacy group Yazda calls “a systematic campaign of mass atrocities against civilians in northern Iraq.”

I meet Rose* at the place she can be found every Thursday morning, escaping the cold in her favourite campus café, laptop open next to a pint of coffee and bowl of edamame. She’s working on her Spanish. “I study languages,” she tells me. She speaks loudly and clearly, moving her lips like an actress; slightly dramatically – which she’ll admit – and often with a smile. “Spanish and Indonesian.”

In May 2017, France elected a new President in what was undoubtedly one of its most uncertain elections in a long time. The usual right-and left-wing division seemed to fall apart, and from that mess emerged a new political figure, unknown until recently, in the form of Emmanuel Macron.

“Dance music needs riot grrrls. Dance music needs Patti Smith . . . Dance music needs cranky queers and people who are tired of this shit. Dance music needs writers and critics and academics and historians. Dance music needs poor people and people who don’t have the right shoes to get into the club . […]

It seems increasingly hard to justify going to the cinema. While ideal for filling a lazy Sunday afternoon, or a classier date option than the new go-to, ‘Netflix and chill’, the entry price often abates any urge to actually go.